


Neurohexazine

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [91]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Body Modification, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald (accidental drug dealer) is befriended by the Doctor (obnoxious ex-hacker) on an interplanetary flight; hijinks ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neurohexazine

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who prompted: clara is transporting some drugs through country by plane, and she's nervous. a mysterious stranger called the doctor (or john smith idk) has noticed this and decided to take a place next to her so he can calm her and help her not to be recognized by stewardesses and other people.

The express jump from Mars to Earth snapped out of orbit right on time. The second-shift beeps echoing tinnily out across Economy Class, the lights brightening and the first-shift cubicles swinging shut.

Clara Oswald, who wasn’t entirely sure what time zone or shift she was currently operating on, remained in a tense but neutral position at her free-seating cheap-ticket booth. Purse close by her side, tablet on her lap tuned to a book she hadn’t been paying much attention to.

The attendant swept brusquely past. She didn’t flinch. Think positive, stay loose, read your goddamn book like the normal law-abiding passenger you are. She focused on the screen, or tried to at least, and read the first sentence of the second chapter five times before all the hairs on her neck stood on end. Someone was here. Someone was _watching_.

And a man slid into the seat across from her. No hello, how do you do, may I, mind if I; no nothing. Just a vast, twitchy pile of gangly grey-haired stranger.

Maybe she’d been sussed out. Maybe she was going to jail, forever. She looked up, nodded politely to the assortment of limbs and eyebrows impinging upon her bubble of personal space, and read the sentence again.

Thinking, oh, what the fuck, is this really how it happens? The worst-case scenario? Less than an hour after departure, she’s apprehended by a scraggly ex-decker trading information for credits. What a way to go.

She read the sentence again.

“You’re not a runner,” her doom and destruction said quietly. Brows furrowed intensely. He pulled his tablet out onto the table, open to a vid about the next week’s referendum. He didn’t look at her.

Her heart started pounding even harder. “Sorry, what?”

“No runners on planes anymore. Even the dumb ones wised up eventually.” He fiddled with his ‘phones, tilted his head to thumb the switch behind his ear. Hack job, old school, probably one of the originals from before the tech had been bought out.

Clara’d had hers installed when she was 14, and you couldn’t even see it. His, though, was all clumsy health-hazard wiring, curling blatantly - defiantly, even - into his hair. She tried not to stare. And certainly did not stare at the line of his jaw, the tendons in his neck: fight or flight, she always had inappropriate thoughts in this sort of situation. She breathed in deeply and carefully. “Right-o,” she said vaguely, hopefully implying that she was just a normal girl, benevolently confused by the strange old man.

“And you’re not an addict. Obviously. Look at you.” His eyes flicked up at her, just for an instant.

“Okay, then.”

“You’re too pretty,” he muttered, flicking over to a cartoon. And to another cartoon. And over, and over, finger restlessly swiping through the logo-glow of the Net. “And too round.”

She shifted in her seat, still nervous, now mildly offended. “Um.”

“You know how they get.” He looked up at her again, gaze hanging on a little longer this time. “After a while, at least; after they’re stupid enough to carry on an interplanetary flight. The day gaunts. They make me look hale and hearty.”

“You look fine,” she said. Because she was Clara Oswald, and in the midst of a panic was reassuring a self-deprecating stranger. Also he did, kind of, if she were honest, look fine. A bit of alright. Wrecked and sailing swiftly past middle age and scrawny enough, preternaturally translucent enough, to indicate any number of chemical dependencies. But still, was something about him.

Again, fight or flight. This was like the time she wound up fucking away the whole 48-hour layover between New Prague and Al-Mahadah with a woman whose last name she never learned.

He shrugged, or hunched his shoulders; smiled, maybe. “So if you’re not a runner and you’re not a junkie. What precise flavor of idiot _are_ you?”

“Excuse me?”

But he knew, didn’t he. Too weird to be a narc, probably, but no guarantee. He reached a long, skinny arm over the table and extended a long, skinny finger; tapped the surface twice and pointed at her purse. “Too much for casual use. Too little to sell. Your boyfriend back home need a fix?”

“Don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. There were worse things coulda come blurting out of her mouth, at least.

“Girlfriend? Agenderfriend? Person of general intimate interest? Miscellaneous?”

She stopped herself, just in time, from explaining the specific details of her romo/sexual entanglements, or lack thereof. “You know how it is. How about you?”

He froze, clearly startled. Hand on the tablet jittering before resuming the constant swipe-past. “Nah. No - none of that.”

“And you’re not a precog. Not officially, anyway. They don’t let any of their dogs loose with tech that shite.”

“Signed up, failed out,” he said, smiling wryly. He rubbed at the mess of puckered skin and cheap plastic behind his ear.

The attendant bumbled by again, giving them both a look. She smiled disarmingly and the stranger glared; the attendant moved on.

“Not a soldier.”

He snorted. _Obviously_.

“So what, then.” She held her chin high, eyes steady where she knew his would finally come to rest.

And they did, wide and pale blue under those eyebrows, crows-feet crinkling. “A friend?”

“I don’t have any friends.” This was technically true.

“Neither do I. First time for everything, though. And you are?”

She could say she was a friend too, that’d be nice. Very cute. Would make for a good story. “Clara,” she said instead. “Clara Oswin.” Not quite her real name, but close enough to seem genuine.

He smiled, then, finally properly smiled, and held out his hand. “The Doctor.”

Was that his name? She grinned forcefully back, pumped his hand firmly but not too firm, tried not to linger over the rough scars on his palm.

“That name used to mean something, once.” He leaned back. Turned his tablet off, even. A heavy thing, that gaze focused solely on her.

“Can’t say I recognize it.”

“Good. I deleted myself, what, oh, how long’s it been? Ten, fifteen years ago. I don’t exist, technically.” He grinned, all teeth, something wolfish about it. “But enough about me. Tell me about _you_ , Clara Oswin. And the cutting-edge research chemicals you aren’t currently in possession of.”

She really, really, really, _really_ shouldn’t trust him. “I made a promise to a friend,” she said anyway.

“Must have been an important friend.”

“Kind of. It, they…was more the promise itself, that was important.” She curled and uncurled her hands into fists. Watched him out the corner of her eye, tensing as he went to pull something out of his coat pocket.

“Not drugs,” he said, shaking a packet of rainbow-colored whatevers under her nose. “Or not classified as such, as yet. Sweets. Make ‘em myself. Agar and sugar and food coloring and. That stuff, you know, they found in the lake by Muskberg.”

She gingerly plucked one out - shaped like a rocket ship, slightly gelatinous - and slipped it into her mouth. Should she chew? Let it dissolve under her tongue? She smiled awkwardly around the thing as he poured the rest of the bag into his mouth, chewing enthusiastically. She just swallowed hers whole.

“Slow build. Very gentle. And like I said, the idiots don’t even know it’s something they should tell you is wrong and shameful to enjoy. I give it about two months before possession is a hundred-quid fine, four months til jail time, a year and they’re gunning you down for even vaguely thinking about it.” Garbled behind the mouthful of experimental nootropics, or whatever this was.

“Mmm,” she said, cozying down into her seat. The weft of the fabric scratching against her bare thighs. Felt nice, one of those fuzzy-touchy-hi-def-ultrafocus things.

“Lucky for you, no precogs on this flight.”

“Yeah. Red-eye flights run light on security, extra light this week because of the festival in Kasterborous, extra-extra light due to a quirk of scheduling.”

“You kind of did your research. I’m marginally impressed.” He was slumped down, just his head visible over the table. His knees bumping against hers, long legs stretching between hers, and she really didn’t have the excuse of adrenaline anymore. “Sorry. Wait. No. I mean, you missed out on some big stuff, but considering you’re. Whatever you are. It’s impressive. I’m impressed. You are, uh. Impressive.”

“Thanks,” she said, staring at him direct in his pale-blue eyeballs. With dilating pupils, now. “Five hours til landing. Wanna kill some time?”

“I’ve got a deck of cards,” he said, drifting lower, just his eyebrows and hair sticking out over the table.

“I’m on birth control,” she replied, apropos of not much.

He slipped down to the floor with a squeak, rolled out clumsily and situated himself on top of the table, a pose that maybe he thought was sexy. “Or that, that’s good too.”

 

The loo was spacious and well-appointed, even card-access showers - very private, hopefully sound-muffling walls around them as she pressed her body against his, hands scraping against the implants behind his ears, kissing him hard and wet and out-of-body loose. The ship thrumming around them, artificial gravity settling them gently down to the squeak-clean tile; all bright lights and her eyes closed and him shuddering beneath her. Was enough, in her purse, maybe half a vial would not go missing; she’d set him up, if he was good.

And by the way he was pulling her skirt down, hose down, nosing in between her legs - yeah, he’d be good.


End file.
